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Is it possible to make a plugin mod to increase mpg?

Hi there!
Is it possible to make a plugin modification on a civic ima to further increase fuel economy?
If the bateries are always at full charge it would assist the gasoline engine for more miles.
Some company is already doing something like this on the prius.

Hi there!
Is it possible to make a plugin modification on a civic ima to further increase fuel economy?
If the bateries are always at full charge it would assist the gasoline engine for more miles.
Some company is already doing something like this on the prius.

Cheers!

I doubt you'll find any modification that will improve on what you get with an HCH-2. The level of technology and optimization that was placed into its design goes well beyond what most small aftermarket companies are willing and able to accommodate. Most engineers agree, only Honda can take these cars to the next level.

Also, unlike the Prius, an IMA design does not lend itself well to an electrical enhancement only, simply because Honda's philophy places more emphasis on saving fuel while Toyota's on capturing energy for optimal re-use. As a result, a Prius is more dependent on the battery pack (which has a much higher energy capacity) and the HCH is not (with a smaller battery pack).

In any case, increased battery capacity can still help but it will not give you what you are looking for an IMA powertrain.

Amazingly, both cars perform roughly the same in terms of fuel efficiency.

Correct me if I'm wrong but even if less than the prius technology, the IMA depends on the batery packs too to optain its results right? And it will operate at its best when they are fully charged, if they are depleted the car will be using engine power or regenerative braking to charge them, and until they have power the ima wont work.
So if I add a plugin charger I can ensure that, at least when I leave the garage, the IMA is working the best it can.

That was my idea, to improve the mpg by ensuring that the batery pack is fully charged in the morning, when the car leaves the garage

You might be able to improve gas mileage on the HCH by making it use more clean grid energy rather then dirty gasoline. However, unlike the Prius, you'd actually have to hack the HCH engine control software to make the electric motor push more while the battery still had charge in it. There is a way to spoof the Prius to rely on the battery more than the gasoline engine using the 'electric-only' button (which isn't on the dash on US models but the circuit is still there).

So if I add a plugin charger I can ensure that, at least when I leave the garage, the IMA is working the best it can.

An external charger would require the BCM to be active and online in order to manage the charge. The BCM is one of the modules found in the IPU unit, behind the rear seat.

Yes, you'll improve the mileage by having a fully charged battery... but since the battery pack on the HCH-2 is too small to hold a significant amount of EV power, the vehicle never depends on it as a primary source of motive power. And while you'll have gains, those will still be small compared to the gains made by the cylinder de-activation and extended EV-Glides... which is the HCH-II's main advantage.

To clarify:
An HCH-2 will make its great mileage when extending the glides with (or without) EV from the battery at ANY speed above 20mph. As a comparison a Prius commonly makes its great mileage at low speeds under EV only because its electric motors were designed to operate as the primary power source at those speeds. The 20hp motor stator on the HCH-2 is not structurally capable of handling the torque caracteristics required to propell the car with EV alone. It was simply not designed to behave that way.

On another note:
Many Hybrid owners avoid using the battery pack at all unless the opportunity to make great mileage appears (like extending a glide). This is particularly true for the more experienced HCH-II and Prius owners. While it feels great to use that battery power, that EV power is very expensive because you must recharge it with regen... and regens hit fuel economy alot more than it appears because you will slow down faster in order to get more power back into the batteries. And if you dont get a chance to recharge with regen then the gas engine will charge it and that kills fuel economy faster.

As others have said, your short answer is no. Even if you transplanted bigger batteries into your HCH (which would be technically complicated), the electric motor simply isn't powerful enough to be useful - and replacing the electric motor is essentially impossible - and if you could do it, it wouldn't be cheap.

Talking about the prius and

Talking about the prius and comparison is not helping. What we need is action yes we understand that the Prius is more plug-in friendly. There are several companies already doing that for them. We know it is possible. If you check out 99mpg.com. Theres a guy who is working on his honda insight IMA which is actually older IMA technology than the Honda Civic. He is trying to bring it up to 100mpg. So where there is a will there is a way. Keep looking around maybe an engineer is getting sick of his civic IMA not getting 100 mpg and try to work on it. I would definitely pay to have my car upgraded to 100MPG. Some of us like variety and not just the Prius.